Chapter 1

The first chapter in the book :) hope you like it if your reading and also thanks for reading :)

There was no screaming today. Today the house was silent. I got up to find that my stupid brother had left the house.

He will get himself killed. But I have no way to help him if he won't listen.

"He's gone. Probably somewhere in town trying to get some sort of supplies before it starts." I said, turning towards my dad who had just come up behind me.

"He's a smart boy, isn't he? It'd do you some good to start thinking like him. Now go get out there and be like your brother. You should have been as smart as him, but I guess the genes went wrong, somehow." He said, pushing me out the door to go get food before the next war. I blinked back tears as I rushed into town to get away from home.

All right, I'll be like him. I'll find a bunch of different ways I could get myself killed and, oh, here's an idea, why don't I try them all?

He doesn't know the difference between life and death anymore. But life is hard enough that it's easy to get sidetracked. And easy to get hung for doing something stupid.
So, being like my brother, I venture off deeper into town, the most dangerous part.

I wipe away my tears as I reach the first illegal market. I can't look weak. When I walk in, I see my brother, not a surprise, and a few of my friends.

"Took you long enough to get the hint," My brother says, "I've been here since the crack of dawn trying to get food before the war but you've been at home doing nothing."

One of my friends notices the blaze in my eyes. He pulls me aside.

"He doesn't need you like I do. He doesn't realize your strengths. I-I need you a lot. Especially in the time of the war." He says.

I try to meet his gaze, but instead he's looking at a girl with him. Maybe he doesn't mean his words as much as he thinks he does.

I pull away. This war has been going on long enough. We could run away. We could live in another colony. This war is never going to end even after 100 years.

"I'm running away. Stay or come with me but I can't live like this anymore. I have no life here. I'm escaping into another colony." I tell him.

"Jacob," The girl he was staring at says, "Is this girl insane? She'll get herself killed. But with a mind like hers maybe it's better off we don't have anyone like her."

I turn to leave. I try to walk away slowly and calmly but before I can even realize what I'm doing I'm running out the door. I hear arguing behind me. It sounds like Jacob and the girl. But Jacob did not follow behind me, so Jacob would not be coming with me.

Reviews

[emipoemi]

You asked for an honest and true opinion, and so this is it. I've taken into account that you are 11 years old, but you still have a long way to go before you can consider yourself a polished writer. The Prologue is short and to the point, which is great in essence; you're allowed to be a bit vague in prologues as they serve to bring the reader in with a bang and/or get some superfluous exposition out of the way. But you need to be careful with being too short that it becomes confusing. There were some good lines, but their brilliance and power are undermined by the fact that we don't really know what's going on. Is this a foreshadow to a later scene? Is this happening before the real story begins? We don't have half of the Five W's and H for us to care and be invested in this story. Who are the men arresting the family? Where is Yara in relation to this and why isn't she getting arrested too? Nothing is really shown, so it's just words on a page.

Same thing with Chapter 1. We don't know where we are, we don't really know who we are, and the dialogue is kind of clunky. Things happen because reasons or because plot gotta move. But if you don't paint the picture, you don't get the readers' attention (great lines and interesting angles notwithstanding).

You have an interesting idea here (all ideas, really, have potential), but your craft is not yet there. My suggestion: reread you favourites and read more in the genre you're wanting to write in - and in general read more - and analyze how the authors build their worlds, craft their characters, spin their dialogue, and bring their stories to life for the readers.

If you need further help or have any further questions about writing novels and whatnot, don't be afraid to ask. If not.....good luck, and don't think about the story - feel the story. Whatever you see in your mind needs to be conveyed on the page (every sight, every sound, every smell - everything - granted that it's relevant to the scene you're writing)

Suerte,
EDP